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My first day back to work after New Years started with my laptop flat lining, having to clean the office pantry microwave after my oatmeal blew up in it, finding myself completely and frantically over my head in a new bit of work I personally requested the week before and a wind-tunneled trip to the new Apple store to gaze at the shiny brightness. In short, I had hoped to be gently eased into 2008, but since that wasn’t in the cards for me, I ended it with a dinner of French Toast. What? Tell me that you’re not jealous.

But you know what else I did, you know, in my maple syrup haze? I completed one half of one of my smittenkitchen new years resolutions! See that over there in the sidebar? Yup, that would be a cooking or kitchen Tip of the Day from little old me. (Hat tip to problogdesign.com for spelling this method out so clearly!) I’ve got a few kinks to work out–like an RSS feed for that category, as I’ve realized these aren’t working–but as I populate the archives, you should start seeing bits of information I’ve picked up over the years spit out to you in bytes. Comments are open, so if you find my Buttermilk Recipe, for example, to be totally off its rocker, feel free to tell me so. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Enough of this, however: I know what you holiday detoxing and highly-resolved people want really want–something healthy, fresh, guilt-free and completely delicious, thus I have for you today the best cucumber salad I have ever made, and hoo boy, I have made a lot. It’s even better than the pickled slices that go in that beloved potato salad, because the pickling is more faint, the hint of garlic makes it more complex and–here’s the best part–it doesn’t take as long to get the flavor out that you want. I made this bowl for us last week, and we ate it in one sitting. (We’re serious about our cukes here, in case that’s not clear.) And my second batch will be what this old lady, still moving slowly after the weekend, needs.

Score cucumbers lengthwise with a fork (I used a zester tool) and slice thin, preferably with slicing disk of a food processor. In a large bowl toss cucumbers with salt and let stand 1 hour.

In a small saucepan bring vinegar and water to a boil with sugar, garlic, and dill seed, stirring until sugar is dissolved, and let dressing cool. In a colander drain cucumbers and rinse under cold water.

Drain cucumbers well, squeezing out excess liquid. In a bowl combine cucumbers with dressing and marinate, covered and chilled, at least 1 hour and up to 6 hours. (After about two hours cucumber skin will discolor, but there will be no effect on flavor.)

I always hated when recipes called for soured milk — what was I supposed to do, sit and wait two months until my milk soured? It was *years* until I picked up somewhere that adding vinegar, lemon juice, or – shudder – pickle juice to milk caused it to curdle. And viola, instant soured milk! It’s like magic!

Cooks Illustrated did a little comparison on buttermilk substitution using your tip. The curdled milk works to give the dish the tang, but they didn’t think it worked quite as well in baked goods, I think. I’m pretty sure they said that you could freeze buttermilk acceptably to keep it on hand. I know people freeze lots of cooking liquids in ice cube trays and then bag the cubes, but to my mind this gives space for freezer burn. I froze breast milk flat in freezer ziplocs and would freeze buttermilk this way. Then you can stack the bags; they’re also easy to defrost because you have a lot of surface area to work with.

Ooo, yummy looking salad! Must try. But right now I’m headed over to the Bloggies to vote for YOU! And I thank you for pointing to those of us in your collective “tasty” blogroll as potential nominees as well. :-)

Yeah I need a salad. I have been not stop chocolate binging since I quit smoking on the first. I HATE IT. I want a cigarette SO EFFIN badly right now that I want to scratch someones eyes out. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
I’m giving it another day or two to get better…..we’ll see. I can’t live like this. I love smoking. Why does everything so good have to be BAD! UGH.

I thought I had figured out my New Year’s resolution — but it’s already TRASHED! And today is only January 3rd. So I’m thinking since I never wrote down my resolutions — well I didn’t really break any! I think so far I might just be ahead of the game. We’ll see. All the best in ’08!

I have an easy cucumber salad too. The 1-2-3 salad. YUM! Too cold in my kitchen to even think of making it. 1 thermostat in the coldest part of the house…furnace kicks on and on and the upstairs — forgettaboutit…it’s hot as blazers up here! I’m schvitzing!

Is it weird to *request* a tip-of-the day? Well, I hope not. I often want to cook with butternut squash and I find it SO difficult to cut that I end up avoiding what is one of my favorite foods (unless, of course, someone else prepares it for me). If you had a tip on dealing with that (i.e. can you just throw the whole big squash in the microwave or something for a short while before trying to cube/peel it), this CA girl would be very grateful!

OoO I love this salad. my 17 yr old son and I fight ( yes, lol I mean fight) over cucumbers, tomatoes, onions …I made this and he said *AHEM, this is all mine*.well needless to say I was ahead of his game , I made separate bowls. yay!mom scores …again

I love your site! you are awesome, keep up all the yumminess you churn out .

Thank you so much for this! I have been drooling over it since seeing the photo on Flickr. I have an old standby that I make with seasoned rice vinegar that I love, but need to break out of the rut of that one. And I know I owe you some recipes, I will get on that soon!

I can second that cuke salad–my family has made it for years and it’s a good one–second only to the version that adds sour cream, but that would kind of nix the New Year’s lightness of it, huh? The Tablespoon ratio is what I’ve always used, and have always had great results, even in baked goods.

As for the buttermilk, the ratio I’ve always heard is 1 Tablespoon vinegar per cup of milk, rather than 1 teaspoon. The tablespoon ratio is what I’ve always used and have always had great results, even in baked goods.

Oatmeal explosion in the office kitchen — been there, done that. More than once. Always a fun way to start a busy work day, no? I’m a huge fan of cucumber salads — my mother used to make one just like this when I was growing up.

sharon: the microwave works extremely well. quarter the squash and pop it in there for a minute, let it cool, and peel off the skin.

and my original comment: it’s final. if the recipe’s not on smitten kitchen, i’m not making it. that being said, deb, i knew you were (eventually) going to put up a rugelach recipe up. not sure if you have everyday food, but if you do, is the recipe in the december 07 issue any good?

I almost always have plain yogurt in the fridge, so I use that 1/2 and 1/2 with milk and just a tiny smidge of lemon juice or vinegar to up the acid content a bit. It comes closer to the texture of buttermilk, I think, and with no waiting.

(My first post here!) Had to tell you how beautiful that looks. And so simple! Simply delicious. Now that’s one of the things I love best about Smitten Kitchen — the range from zip-zap-zoom to worth-braving-hot-stove-for-on-sweltering-summer-day… Off to vote for Deb!

Oooh – that sounds very similar to what my mom calls Hungarian cukes. Same theory, peel, slice and souse with a mixture of water, vinegar and sugar – but my mom’s version leaves out garlic and dill and instead adds a healthy dash of paprika.
But now I have another variety to make when the mood strikes. Yay!

Hey there – Thanks for the credit link in regards to the Tip of the Day. You’ve implemented it really well. The Tip sits perfectly in your sidebar! :)

The RSS feed problem is a WordPress problem, more specifically, in the files that make the feeds (Your main feed isn’t working either). Did you upgrade WP recently? I think some of your files haven’t been updated. You should try re-uploading your files (In particular, the /wp-includes directory/, and the files in the root level (wp-config.php, wp-rss.php, wp-rss2.php etc.)

Sorry I can’t leave an on-topic comment though. I’m not much of a cook I’m afraid!

Baking powder or buttermilk? Baking powder with the cornstarch in it will keep for months in an airtight container–likely as long as the baking soda does. Buttermilk I wouldn’t keep beyond the milk’s expiration date. However, I’ve heard about people freezing unused buttermilk for later use but haven’t tried it yet.

Eileen- This is very similar to a Thai version I make all year long. Just add some crushed red pepper to taste to the vinegar mixture as you’re heating it and thinly sliced onions of any variety (if you like onions- fine without them). Radishes are a lovely addition too. It keeps very well and I usually have a batch in the fridge all the time(especially in summer).

Perfect – my girlfriend is on a raw foods bender as her new year’s resolution and this recipe will fit the bill. Have you tried making pickled seaweed salad as well? I’d be really curious to see that recipe. Great photos, as always!

No. It is an actual seed, and I had a surprisingly hard time tracking it down (finally: last night from McCormick for nearly $5, which baffled me since it was such a tiny bottle). In this recipe, I added fresh dill at the end instead, because I couldnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t find the seed. If you are using dried, IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢d add it sooner.

How might these be minus the sugar? I love savory-sweet things involving meat and cheese, but I can’t stand for my veggies to be tainted with sugar! Is it undetectable?

ps- Dill seed is kind of expensive. If you grow your own dill, it will “go to seed”, aka: grow big sunflower-esque seed branches at the end of it. You can cut these off, let them dry, and shake out the seeds. It’s easy to grow, too, like parsley :)

I was craving cucumber salad, and lo! here was a recipe that looked delish. And let me just tell you that half of it was gone before it was even done marinating. The garlic and dill flavors were just perfect. Absolutely outstanding. Will be a summer staple, I’m sure.

The cucumbers are marinating now, can’t wait! An FYI about the dill seed– Try natural food markets where they have big jars of bulk spices. I went to Whole Foods and got a few scoop-fulls for $1.75…Much cheaper than spices in bottles!

I just made this yesterday, with a few changes – no dill seed or fresh dill, so used dried dill tips instead, and no white wine vinegar so i used a mix of 2/3 white vinegar and 1/3 red wine vinegar instead. They turned out well! Crisp and refreshing, though a bit tart for me to eat lots at a go plain. I crumbled a little mild cheddar on it and that helped temper the edge a bit, but i think if I made it again I’d make smaller quantities and toss it into a green salad instead.

This sounds delicious, but I’ve never seen seedless cukes where I live, in Sydney Australia. If I use regular cukes, what effect do you think this would have on the final product? Visual only, since the cukes are salted anyway?

Hi Deb. This looks like a close cousin to the Hungarian version. We have a bad habit of drinking the vinaigrette when we have finished eating the cucumbers.
Is the lovely picture yours? Please comment.

LOVED it! I made it with green and yellow cukes for a super pretty side salad. I scored the sides with a fork, did the full hour salt drain, used regular vinegar but I skipped the dill. This will be a frequent summer dish for us. Thanks!

Cukes with tahini are a marvelous snack. A dish of each pushes buttery popcorn and other unhealthy snacks out of the way when watching TV or a movie. In your Vietnamese salad, i substituted Tupelo honey for sugar – yummy.

Same as my Viennese-Hungarian grandmother’s recipe, but without the dill. We love it. We actually eat it with goulash and hot red cabbage (and to go with that I bake little red potatoes, cut crosses in the top and fill with horseradish and rocket)

I’m wondering about the purpose of the salt here. I have an old favorite recipe that is similar, but only use a 1/2 t. salt, and it doesn’t call for adding the salt before the other ingredients. What does that step do for the dish?

Thank you for all of the wonderful recipes, tips, coaching, and thoughtfulness found on your website. Although I’ve never commented before, I’ve followed and learned from you for years.

I added a teaspoon of dried dill weed in addition to the dill seed for some extra dillsomeness and it turned out perfectly! This is now my fav cucumber salad recipe, after many, many other recipe tests. It’s perfectly crispy and the white wine vinegar gives the perfect acidic bite. Thanks, Deb!